Mohe-Daqing pipeline is the first pipeline to be buried, passing through the permafrost regions of North China where the temperature in winter is about minus thirty degrees Celsius. This pipeline has been transporting large quantities of crude oil per day to northern markets of China since January 1st, 2011. It’s a significant cooperation for both Russia and China.
This paper reviews the design, construction, and operational challenges of the first pipeline buried in the permafrost regions of North China. The pipeline is in so complicated geography environment that many kinds of geotechnical disaster could happen easily, including frost heave, thaw settlement, slope instabilities, and collapse and so on. Monitoring pipeline material strain in specific region is important and significant. Ground movement of the pipeline induces sufficiently large strains to the pipeline, which would cause wrinkling on the compression side of the pipe, or alternatively tensile fracture on the tensile side of the pipe. Brag fiber sensors have been located and composed on the surface of the pipe, which were used to monitor material strain real-time data at any time.
Finite element pipe soil interaction and ground movement models in specific sites have been developed according to the monitoring data. Whether the generated pipeline strain is exceeded the strain capacity or not could be estimated by comparing with the strain capacity of the pipeline, which can help us to make decision for pipeline safety management and prevent pipeline damage from geotechnical disaster.
